'Shenanigans' reported in selection of interim member of New Orleans City Council

Ernest 'Freddie' Charbonnet is chosen to take Jon Johnson's place until an election is held

The divisiveness that characterized the recent battle over one interim appointee to the New Orleans City Council re-emerged Thursday as the council picked a second temporary member, this time to replace Jon Johnson in District E. After a debate that included veiled accusations about vindictiveness and back-room dealings, the council voted 4-2 to appoint attorney Ernest "Freddie" Charbonnet to the interim post.

The ballots were cast along racial lines, with the four white council members voting in favor and the two black members voting against.

Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, one of the naysayers, cited "shenanigans that (went) on behind closed doors," not Charbonnet's qualifications, as her reason for rejecting his appointment. Councilwoman Diana Bajoie sided with Hedge-Morrell in voting no.

By the time the meeting began, there were just two candidates left to choose from: Charbonnet and attorney Mike Darnell. Both are African-American.

Two others who had made the short list of possible appointees dropped out at the eleventh hour. Rashida Ferdinand, a 9th Ward artist, said she decided to focus on her work. Businessman Ronald Carrere, a mortgage consultant for Liberty Bank & Trust Co., did not respond to questions about his last-minute decision to back out of the race.

A similar split on the council in May, also prompted by the appointment of an interim member, led to a month-long standoff at City Hall.

In that case, Head resigned her District B seat after she was elected to an at-large post. As is traditional for council members departing midterm, Head recommended a temporary successor. She nominated urban planner Errol George, who is black.

But moments before the council was to vote on the appointment, Johnson and Hedge-Morrell -- then the only black members of the council -- walked out for reasons they never fully explained. They did not return for more than a month, leaving the council without a quorum and unable to vote on George's appointment. After the council's 30-day deadline for picking a replacement expired, Mayor Mitch Landrieu named former state legislator Diana Bajoie to fill that vacancy.

The District E seat, which covers most of eastern New Orleans and the Lower 9th Ward, has been empty since Johnson last week pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges and resigned.

The District B and E seats both will be on the Nov. 6 ballot, with runoffs, if necessary, scheduled for Dec. 8.

In the meantime, the City Charter left it up to the council to pick a temporary replacement.

At a brief special meeting before Thursday's regularly scheduled session, Bajoie sided with Hedge-Morrell in voting against Charbonnet. But she said she also would have voted against Darnell, who served as an interim at-large member in 2007 after Oliver Thomas resigned. After the meeting, Bajoie said she looks forward to working with Charbonnet.

Hedge-Morrell, too, said her opposition to Charbonnet had nothing to do with him personally. It was the process that offended her. Just after the vote, she chided her colleagues for unspecified "shenanigans" and "vindictiveness." While she did not expound on her complaint publicly, she said after the meeting that her frustration was the result of what she believed to be an overly secretive process.

Hedge-Morrell said she had understood that the six council members who remained after Johnson's departure would collect names of possible appointees and then present a long list to the public at a public hearing. Instead, she said, the other council members unfairly whittled the list down behind closed doors and without district residents' involvement. The other members had their minds made up before Thursday's meeting began, she alleged.

The only member of the public who asked to speak at the meeting shared a similar complaint, though she was not called to the podium until after the council had already voted.

Cheryl Diggins, who sits on the Eastern New Orleans Neighborhood Advisory Commission, questioned the council's process for narrowing the list of names down to four. The council overlooked qualified hopefuls suggested by people in the district, she complained.

She said the six councilwomen fielded phone calls and other endorsements from the community and each compiled a list. Each then picked three names and forwarded them to her. She said she removed duplicates, put the names in alphabetical order and sent the culled list back to the council members, asking them to name their top two. Again, they sent their picks, Clarkson removed duplicates and the final list numbered just four, she said.

Initially, Clarkson said, the council planned to invite the public to speak on behalf of any of the four possible appointees. But with only two names left by Thursday, she said, the council asked both to speak for three minutes each, then skipped directly to the vote.

Charbonnet told the council that he is a lifelong resident of New Orleans and has lived in eastern New Orleans since 1995.

As a lawyer, he said, he built his practice on three words: "service, competency and integrity."

"There are so many good families, hardworking people and good homes," he said of his district. "But we don't have the same quality of life that people have in different areas. And one of the sad by-products of that is that we don't know each other. We don't bond as a community."

Darnell, the other option, shook Charbonnet's hand and wished him well after the vote.

Charbonnet was not eligible to vote Thursday during the regular council meeting that followed. He must first collect his commission from the secretary of state in Baton Rouge, then return to be sworn in.

After the meeting, he said he was confused about the controversy surrounding his appointment and would make it his first order of business to figure out what had caused the rift.

"I want people to know that I'm independent," said Charbonnet, a former assistant city attorney. "I do not have a side."

Charbonnet will not be eligible to run in the Nov. 6 special election.